The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 53 points at 16,270. After the initial volatility the index advanced to a high of 16,310 in early morning trades.

The index, however, could not hold gains and slipped into the negative zone. Selective profit taking saw the index touch a low of 16,010 - down 300 points from the day's high. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 131 points at 16,087.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,760 stocks traded, 1,722 advanced, 990 declined and 48 were unchanged on Wednesday.

The NSE Nifty slipped 49 points to end at 4,829.

Index shakers

Hindustan Unilever and ICICI Bank [Get Quote] plunged over 4% each to Rs 234 and Rs 843, respectively.

Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] shed 3.7% at Rs 803. DLF, Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] and BHEL dropped around 3% each to Rs 658, Rs 226 and Rs 1,955, respectively.

Reliance Communications [Get Quote], Cipla and Ambuja Cements shed around 2% each to Rs 526, Rs 206 and Rs 122, respectively.

SBI [Get Quote] and NTPC slipped around 1.5% each to Rs 1,714 and Rs 197, respectively. Wipro [Get Quote] declined 1.3% to Rs 429.

ONGC [Get Quote] was down over 1% at Rs 1,063.

And the movers

Tata Steel [Get Quote] surged nearly 4% to Rs 658. HDFC [Get Quote] moved up 2.7% to Rs 2,660.

ITC gained 2% at Rs 195. HDFC Bank advanced 1.6% to Rs 1,441.

Value and volume toppers

Reliance Capital [Get Quote] topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 385.50 crore followed by Axis Bank (Rs 378.50 crore), Indiabulls [Get Quote] (Rs 261 crore), GSS America (Rs 245 crore) and Reliance (Rs 186.50 crore).

Ispat Industries [Get Quote] led the volume chart with trades of around 1.87 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (1.58 crore), Reliance Petroleum [Get Quote] (80.60 lakh), IFCI (75.80 lakh) and Essar Oil [Get Quote] (72.50 lakh).